


exit, pursued

by arbitrarily



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Supernatural Weirdness, Episode Tag, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/pseuds/arbitrarily
Summary: Before he leaves Kansas City, Omie has one stop left to make.
Relationships: Lemuel Cannon/Omie Sparkman
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	exit, pursued

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after the final scene in episode 4x07, "Layaway." Apparently despite the events of episode 4.09, my interest here is unstoppable lol.

This place gave him the creeps. Always did; he dreaded each time they had to stop by here—crowded together into that kitchen, visiting with Dibrell and her white man. Listening to their excuses rather than collecting the cash that was owed. This was a place that struck him as wrong, incontrovertibly. The sorta place his grandmama might’ve called touched—the divide between this world and the next gone that much too thin. Not that Omie talked like that, gave any such superstition more than a nodding glance. But putting his own doubt aside, there was an unmistakable pall of death over the King of Tears mortuary; he could feel it. For a long moment, as he waited out in the cold on the porch for Dibrell to open the door, he wondered if it would follow him from here.

The Christmas wreath, bedecked with plump rosy-cheeked Santas grinning like they had a dirty secret, flapped as the door flew open. Dibrell’s face shifted from distracted annoyance to flat-out irritation. She crossed her arms over her chest and said nothing, not even hello.

“Ma’am.” Omie took his hat off, manners not entirely lost on him. “I come by to see Cannon’s boy.”

She looked like she was considering denying him, but then relented. The expression on her face at the mention of Boss’s son was one he knew well. It wasn’t so much sympathy as it was sorrow at bad-decision making having gone and took its pound of flesh. She knew about Satchel, was what he meant. He could see it, easy and obvious, in the way she looked at him, like it was somehow his own choices that had brought about the boy's demise. Wasn’t fair, but then, what was.

“He's upstairs. In the guest room, second door down on the right.” She stepped back from the front door. She eyed his boots with pointed contempt—the snow and salt, the city grime stuck to them. “”Hmmph,” she said.

In stocking feet, Omie climbed the stairs. Each creaked beneath his weight.

Even had he been without Dibrell’s direction, there was no doubt as to which room was Lemuel’s. A rising wail of jazz music came from behind only one door—the second down on the right. Some French shit was dueling for attention from behind the door opposite.

He rapped his fist against the door and, without waiting for a response, opened it.

Omie wasn’t who he’d been expecting. That much was clear, what with Lemuel’s aborted, “What d’you wa—” and the parted open mouth that punctuated it. Omie closed the door behind himself.

“Mighty fine to see you, too. Wanna shut that mouth before you start collecting flies?”

With a jut of his chin up and out, Lemuel did just that. He was sat on the edge of his bed, his shoulders slumped, nothing in the least about him looking either comfortable or at home. He only looked tired and scared in equal turn.

The guest room was small but neat, decorated fine and to the hilt, especially if you thought the year was still 1920. Bulky and ornately carved dark wood furniture dominated the already limited space, most like previously owned by someone very much so dead. Lemuel looked more an anomaly here than he usually did among the Cannon Limited.

“Got you set up in some nice digs here.”

“If I was an elderly aunt, maybe.”

Omie flashed a quick grin then slowly shook his head, still amused. “Come on now. Show Ms. Dibrell a little love.”

A brief, not-quite smile scarcely lit up Lemuel’s face. He looked down at his hands, where they were clasped between his knees. He looked up at Omie. “I’m gonna guess you’re not here to take me home.”

“Nope. I am not.”

Lemuel nodded, like he expected that. Upset was still on his face though, the kind that got etched deep into a person and the only thing time did to it was curdle and rot.

“You know?” Lemuel finally said.

“Yeah. And I’m real sorry for it.”

Lemuel scoffed. He wrung his hands. Delicate and thin, they looked soft even from Omie’s distance. “He let this happen,” he said, spiky and dark.

“Who?”

“Who the hell you think? My pops. Loy goddamn Cannon. Took his own flesh and blood to the slaughter.”

Omie shifted his weight, buried his hands deep in his pockets. He shook his head. “Only one man responsible for the bad been done to your brother. That man’s Calamita, and that motherfucker's about to be dead.”

Lemuel fixed him with a hard look. There was some real steel there, and Omie inexplicably felt very nearly proud of him for it. “You’re gonna kill him?”

“Mm-hmm. One of your daddy’s orders I am all too pleased to abide.”

Lemuel went quiet, and so did the music. The record had stopped. Only static now.

“Can I come with you?”

Omie tightened his mouth. He rearranged his posture, set his hands behind his back, his spine loose even as the rest of him tensed. “You cannot.” He cocked his head. “That’s in part why I came by. Thought somebody should come talk you down.” Lemuel scowled. Omie held up a hand before he could say anything. “Nuh-uh. Shooting off at the hip—that’s exactly what you ain’t gonna do. Don’t be playing at games you haven’t got the experience to understand. Not this round. You’re the crown prince, boy. And if I know anything about management, I know they don’t get their hands dirty. They leave that to me. All’s you gotta do is be smart and be strong and don’t go around acting stupid.”

Lemuel looked like he wanted to fight him on at least one of those points but knew better than to try. Would you look at that—acting smart already.

“What’s the other part?”

“Huh?”

“I said, what’s the other part? You say, ‘in part,’ that implies there’s at least another.”

Now he was just being a smart-ass. Omie shrugged. “Wanted to say my good-byes, I suppose.” He felt it then, what he’d been denying since he stepped foot on that porch. A chill had settled at the back of his neck, as if something in this house had its attention fixed squarely on him. It had him in its sights. He ignored it.

“You think we’re friends or something?” Disbelief made Lemuel’s voice go higher. "You work for my dad.”

“I don’t got any shame in that.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

“Maybe. Or, maybe, you don’t know the fuck you’re talking about.” Omie didn’t raise his voice. He very rarely needed to.

Lemuel pressed his lips together and pressed his hands to his thighs. “Everything,” he started to say, slowly, like maybe he could feel that chill, too. Like he was learning to recognize it. Lemuel shook his head. “It all feels like it’s, I don’t know, coming to…”

“A head?”

“Nah, I was gonna say the end.”

“You didn’t inherit your daddy’s optimism, did you?” Omie said, droll as anything.

“Not for this. No.” Lemuel wasn’t playing; he was serious. “‘sides, he’s no optimist. He’s all opportunist.”

Omie rummaged in his pocket for a smoke. He slipped a cigarette between his lips. “What’s the fucking difference?” He muttered it more to himself than as an actual question for Lemuel to answer. Lemuel didn’t answer him anyhow.

“You can’t do none of that in here,” Lemuel said, pointing at him.

Omie did nothing at first. Like maybe he was gonna show Loy’s boy he didn’t get to order him around; that right resided solely with his father. You had to earn his obedience. Pay well for it. Still, Omie slowly and deliberately removed the cigarette from his mouth. He trained both his good and his bad eye on Lemuel. “I’ll behave. Wouldn’t wanna rouse the dead.”

Lemuel didn’t say anything. Dark was coming on quick as five o’clock approached and even in the small amount of time Omie’d spent visiting the room had begun to go dim. Felt more private like that, the bed hulking and obvious not even four paces in front of him. It was past time to get moving. He’d wasted enough already for reasons he didn’t much care to offer consideration.

“Alright then. Be good to Ms. Dibrell. And don’t be too bad with the girl.” He cut a quick and dirty grin. Lemuel cracked a smile of his own in reply, ruefully shook his head.

“Any other parting wisdom for the—what you call me? The boy king?” He hadn’t, but he didn’t correct him.

“Can’t say I got any more in me. Never have been the wisest. No point to start pretending now.”

Neither of them did anything more for a pause. They held, as if waiting for the first strike of the bell to get things moving. Lemuel moved first, always hearing music that wasn’t there. He got to his feet. He closed the short distance between the both of them and came over to Omie. He stood in front of him, face raised, defiance without direction an easy thing for him to wear. Omie thought he was gonna reach out and shake his hand or something, like he thought the both of them together could equal proper gentlemen. Instead, he watched as Lemuel went both tentative and determined, a contradiction that didn’t make any kind of sense. No time to think on it further than that: with his jaw set, Lemuel reached for him. His movements were jerky and untrained, ill-considered, as his fingers latched tight around Omie’s wrist, under the cuff of his jacket. Lemuel lunged for him then and his mouth was on his, tight-lipped and closed, frantic with terror and something else. Omie was good at recognizing fear in a man, not so much the other thing.

It made for the most damn fool kiss Omie’d been on the receiving end of. He reacted quickly. He grabbed at Lemuel’s arm, his hand nearly able to span the tight muscle above his elbow. The wool of his sweater was scratchy and warm.

“The hell’s that?” Omie said.

“Shit.” Even a kiss as pathetic and chaste as that, and the kid was winded. He took a shuddering breath in. “I’m sorry. I—I don’t know what I was—”

“No, I mean.” And then Omie gave into it, first a brief laugh, and then what he actually wanted. He cradled Lemuel’s jaw, light and easy as it fit in his hand, and he kissed him right.

Been awhile since he’d kissed anybody with any amount of purpose. You didn’t forget how to do it, but you did forget the overwhelm of it. Lemuel’s mouth gave against his, parted open wet and hot, and it was good. It was real good. Lemuel kissed him back, his chest flush with Omie’s, his hands curled into the front of his jacket. Lemuel was more than eager. With the eagerness came possibility, which Omie wasn’t at the liberty to contemplate, not now. Maybe later, when he returned to Kansas City, victorious, Calamita dead greater than any prize he’d fought for in his career. His mouth went that much more demanding, the kiss fevered, at the thought. Lemuel made a high, light noise like a girl would, after she was kissed stupid.

Omie was playing with fire here, and he knew it. Didn’t stop his hands from moving down the solid, narrow line of Lemuel’s back to his hips. Didn’t stall his mouth or tongue. The rules applied different, he knew, between the Cannons and those who worked for them. Omie was never gonna be a college boy, never gonna frequent the circles that Lemuel put himself in, the jazz clubs and the rallies and Loy Cannon’s dining room table. Omie was the reason Lemuel could do those things. If you took that logic, that made this into something he should be allowed to take, same as Loy Cannon should be able to take the slaughterhouses and the trucking routes and the entire goddamn city, if he wanted. They’d earned it. They worked for it.

Still, Omie pulled back from him, before it went any further. If it would. Could. Clumsy inexperience was all but tattooed on Lemuel’s forehead; Omie tamped down the flare of heat, thinking about doing something about that. Maybe there was a place, a time, where and when Omie took the time to teach him the things worth wanting for a man. It was the sort of thought that ruined most folks, got them imagining shit that was never gonna be theirs. Because Omie knew better: there was no place in this world for a man to let himself be tender-hearted.

“I gotta,” and he jerked his head towards the door behind him. He still had the kid’s taste sticking damp in his mouth.

“Yeah. Right.” Lemuel took a deep breath. Omie could nearly see a doubled reflection of himself in the lens of Lemuel’s glasses. As if he could see a reflection of his own in Omie’s face, Lemuel brought a hand up to touch his mouth. Like maybe he was thinking it was no longer his own. “You’ll kill him?” he said suddenly. He dropped his fingers from his swollen bottom lip.

Omie was struck suddenly with the powerlessness of it, what it meant to be somebody like Lemuel. His hands were tied. He would wait, leave it up to men like Omie to make things right while he sat here, keeping company with the dead. He’d never looked at it like that before. He didn’t much care for it.

“There ain’t no escape, not for him.”

Lemuel nodded. He stood up that much straighter. “I’ll see you when you get back.” No inflection there signifying a question or even a request. It was a goddamn command. Omie nearly smiled.

“I suppose you will.” The doorknob was cool under his hand. “See ya, kid.”

The hall was empty, and Omie let himself loiter. There was only silence on the other side of Lemuel’s door, and then, the muffled sound of movement. The scrape as the needle was replaced on the record; the mournful opening cry of a horn rang out. That chill scraped at the back of his neck. He shrugged it off.

At the base of the stairs, he slipped his boots on. The house was silent down here—couldn’t even hear Lemuel’s music from up above.

Omie stopped at the front door, open before him. He could smell the cold, the threat of snow. Gonna be a long night and an even longer drive. He turned his head, prepared to look back, but his attention caught. To his right stood a room. Empty, well-appointed. At the back of the room, a coffin was waiting. It was open, the lid half-raised. The room was dark, and he stared into it, tried to see beyond shape and shadow. Nothing doing.

He shook his head, came back to himself. “Ain’t got the time,” he said, not entirely certain to whom he spoke. Himself, or somebody, something else. With a shrug, he pulled his hat back on. He trudged out into the waiting cold. When the door shut behind him, the coffin lid did, too.


End file.
